Amid the sweeping, high-profile cases decided at the end of the Supreme Court's term on same sex marriage and the Voting Rights Act, one little-noticed
case could dramatically change the way employees bring harassment cases against their employers.

In this particular case, Maetta Vance was a dining hall worker at Ball State University in Indiana. Vance, an African-American, sued the university in
2006, alleging that a white supervisory colleague, Saundra Davis, launched a campaign of racial harassment and intimidation against her. Even though Davis
didn't have power to fire her, Vance claimed, she did have the power to direct her activities on the job in the university's banquet and catering division.

The Supreme Court's decision does something subtle, but with far-reaching effects: It narrows the definition of the word "supervisor."

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion, "We hold that an employer may be vicariously liable for an employee's unlawful harassment only when the
employer has empowered that employee to take tangible employment actions against the victim, i.e., to effect a 'significant change in employment status,
such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in
benefits.'"

To the average worker today, though, the Court's restriction on defining a "supervisor" in this way doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Most supervisors
have to appeal to higher-level executives or human resources departments to enact demotions or alter pay. And, worryingly, though Vance v. Ball State was
about racial harassment, there's no reason it wouldn't apply to other kinds of protections provided for in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, including
sexual harassment and harassment due to religion. This is a ruling likely to disproportionately affect women, since, according to data collected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, just
16.3 percent of the more than 11,000 sexual harassment charges filed in fiscal year 2011 were from men.

"It makes a lot of sense for a large company to limit the number of people who actually have authority to take actions like firing and hiring and
demoting," said Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment at the National Women's Law Center. But she pointed out that many companies
create a structure where supervisors have a lot of leeway over a worker's environment, even if he or she doesn't have the power to hire and fire.

A supervisor could, for example, require the worker to put in longer hours, work outside or pick up unwanted duties on the job.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lays out in her dissent, this is the problem with narrowing the definition of "supervisor."

"Exposed to a fellow employee's harassment, one can walk away or tell the offender to 'buzz off,'" Ginsburg wrote. "A supervisor's slings and arrows,
however, are not so easily avoided. An employee who confronts her harassing supervisor risks, for example, receiving an undesirable or unsafe work
assignment or an unwanted transfer. She may be saddled with an excessive workload or with placement on a shift spanning hours disruptive of her family
life. And she may be demoted or fired. Facing such dangers, she may be reluctant to blow the whistle on her superior, whose 'power and authority invests
his or her harassing conduct with a particular threatening character.'"

Goss Graves, from her position as an advocate for women in the workplace, agreed with Ginsburg's assessment. "If there's someone who is abusing that power,
wielding their power to make their subordinates' lives horrible in a way to aid and assist in their harassment, the idea that the company isn't liable for
that and treats that person as just an average co-worker makes no sense," she said.

The Vance decision is one of many ways the Court has recalibrated--often restricting--its approach to employee rights in harassment or discrimination cases in recent years.

Still, the new definition won't make it impossible to bring forward new employment harassment cases. Cato Institute's Overlaywered blog argued that while the
definition of supervisor may have become narrowed for bringing a "vicarious harassment" case--i.e., a case claiming the company is liable for the actions of
the supervisor--employees can still bring forward cases under a negligence claim for failing to stop harassment by a co-worker.

Goss Graves admitted that this is the case, but though "It is possible," the ruling still makes it "really, really tough."

The Vance decision is one of many ways the Court has recalibrated--often restricting--its approach to employee rights in harassment or
discrimination cases in recent years. Goss Graves recalled that not so long ago the Supreme Court decided in Ledbetter v. Goodyear that the window
during which an employee could file a suit for pay discrimination must be filed within 180 days of the pay decision. But Lilly Ledbetter, the plaintiff in
that case, had been unaware that she'd been subjected to pay discrimination for years.

As a result, Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, a rather narrow law that said each subsequent paycheck after the pay decision
counted as a new instance of pay discrimination and therefore could be subject to a lawsuit.

Congress could do the same with Vance v. Ball State, amending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act -- which turns 50 next year -- to say that a supervisor
is defined as someone with authority over an employee's actions on the job, regardless of his or her power over the employee's pay or employment status.

Even though Vance hasn't gotten much attention, Goss Graves and other activists remain optimistic that Congress will take up the issue. "The
Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision came down in 2007 and it wasn't until 2009 that it was signed into law. But once the public starts to really hear about the
chipping away of rights for workers in the workplace, I think that we'll see some movement on the Hill," she said.

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Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.

Why did Trump’s choice for national-security advisor perform so well in the war on terror, only to find himself forced out of the Defense Intelligence Agency?

How does a man like retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn—who spent his life sifting through information and parsing reports, separating rumor and innuendo from actionable intelligence—come to promote conspiracy theories on social media?

Perhaps it’s less Flynn who’s changed than that the circumstances in which he finds himself—thriving in some roles, and flailing in others.

In diagnostic testing, there’s a basic distinction between sensitivity, or the ability to identify positive results, and specificity, the ability to exclude negative ones. A test with high specificity may avoid generating false positives, but at the price of missing many diagnoses. One with high sensitivity may catch those tricky diagnoses, but also generate false positives along the way. Some people seem to sift through information with high sensitivity, but low specificity—spotting connections that others can’t, and perhaps some that aren’t even there.